


Before You Go

by WhenIFindLoveAgain



Series: Lost On You [2]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Character Study, Comedy, Drama, Drama & Romance, F/M, Family Drama, Fiction, Food, Infidelity, Love, M/M, Original Character(s), Past Infidelity, Past Relationship(s), Tragedy/Comedy, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-16 09:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 8,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21505642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhenIFindLoveAgain/pseuds/WhenIFindLoveAgain
Summary: The Pentrose Hotel and Restaurant has grown to international reputation, and Jeon Wonwoo with his partner Joshua Hong is on top, with the help of his professional chef Mother in the restaurant, after the death of his Father. Great sucess, however, can atrract unwelcome attention from unexpected places.When estranged family comes back into the lives of the near and dear, mayhem ensues with full deliverance of their previous sins and new hope, and a lack of trust. New employees rise up the challenge of apprentice, but dark secrets are hidden. Relationships form, and blossom, and marriages do their best not to crumble. And, of course, Jeon Senior's voice still echoes through-out from beyond the grave
Relationships: Hong Jisoo | Joshua/Jeon Wonwoo, Hong Jisoo | Joshua/Kim Mingyu, Hong Jisoo | Joshua/Yoon Jeonghan, Jeon Wonwoo/Yoon Jeonghan, Lee Jihoon | Woozi/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Lost On You [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1550116
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the beginning of "Before You Go" - Chapter One of it in fact.

The Pentrose Hotel, Restaurant, and Vineyard has grown to international reputation, and Jeon Wonwoo with his partner Joshua Hong is on top, with the help of his professional chef Mother in the restaurant, and illegal money been laundered through the Hotel brought into South Korea from a safe deposit box in Germany by his Grandmother, after the death of his Father. Great sucess, however, can atrract unwelcome attention from the most unexpected places. Every dysfunctional family needs a dysfunctional family business, where there is no room for old family secrets to hide. 

When Joshua's estranged former partner Kim Mingyu becomes a more solid presence in his life, Chae-Seon's also estranged Father waltzes back into her life, painful memories are re-surfaced, and mayhem ensues hand-in-hand with full deliverance for all of their previous sins, and new hope. Is any of them right to trust a word that comes out of their mouths?  
New Vineyard employee Andy has the talent and potential to be Dido's landscaping protegee, but is Dido hiding a dark secret?

Jihoon and Elizabeth have been building the relationship they have put on hold for the best part of seven years, but is her twin sister Victoria ready to let Jihoon into she and Elizabeth's entwined lives, and even her own heart?

A-Yeong's desire to make things work with formerly-adulterer husband Li threatens to de-rail her general day-to-day life making the two of them wonder if they're capable of a loving, meaningful marriage rather than a working relationship. And, of course, Jeon Senior's voice still echoes through-out from beyond the grave


	2. Bastard Father-in-Law's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An insight to Jeon Senior's relationship with his former Father-in-Law, Hiro Sung-Il

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Presenting Hiro Sung-Il - Chae-Seon's Father, Wonwoo's Grandfather. Nasty, nasty man

Jeon Senior sat in a small local restaurant in the closest village of the Gyryeonsan mountain to his former Hotel, the Pentrose, observing a menu; full of common rural Korean food and beverages. A chubby, middle-aged couple sat three tables down to his left, and the couple who owned it; one was a skinny man in a grease-stained singlet and trousers, the other a slightly younger woman with lank hair and no jaw-line in a plastic apron and a cotton house-wife's dress. "Death takes a little getting used to." He said. "Most never give it a moment's thought." Jeon looked over into the kitchen of the small restaurant as the man - frying eggs - in the greasey singlet gave a cough that made him sound like a walrus.

  
Jeon walked into the kitchen, and observed him looking through jars of spices and herbs for the salt; for the dinginess of the kitchen and not much class going for it, the couple evidently could cook, Jeon judging by the ingredients that stocked their pantry.

  
"Twenty Red-Marlboro cigarettes a day since 1986." He said of the coughing man. "Gave up last week...but his right lung is already brewing the cancer that will kill him."  
Jeon looked over to the man's wife as she put small copper coins into a jar, smiling preciously down at all the little bits of metal.

  
"Her holiday-fund jar. The sixth of July, 2025, she takes that holiday to Spain; finally enough money after her husband's death." Jeon winced. "Drowns white-water rafting."

  
Jeon went back into the restaurant, and glared as a elderly man in a black suit took his chair at his table. "Meet Hiro Sung-Il, Chae-Seon's Father, Wonwoo and Bo Hyuk's Grandfather. He's lived long enough to cause some damage." Jeon's lip curled at the grey stubble on the old man's face. "This man is way past his sell-by date."   
Jeon neatly lay across the table, and watched his former Father-in-Law read the menu.

  
"Just eggs." The old man said as the middle-aged woman came over to take his order.

  
Jeon stopped watching the old man as two workers who were doing repairs on the roof of the restaurant came in for their lunch, which was wrapped up in foil and a plastic bowl for them by the cancer-suffering man. Sung-Il was eating the eggs with his fingers, and it made Jeon revolted to even hear the sound. 

  
"My point is - of death - is that no one ever expects it." Jeon added. He stuck his middle finger up as Sung-Il looked at him. "It just arrives one day out of a clear blue sky." Jeon smiled nastily to himself as Sung-Il left the restaurant.

  
"Life has a way of serving up what we deserve. And if anyone deserves what is about to happen to him..."

  
One worker on the restaurant's roof laughed as the second man threw the foil-wrapped lunch at him, making him catch it. As he did, he stumbled, knocking a bucket of paint about four kilograms in weight through the scaffolding around the restaurants roof.

  
"...it's Hiro Sung-Il."

  
"Watch out!" The workers yelled, just as the paint tin hit Sung-Il's face. 


	3. Spring / / Rituals Of Doctors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Introducing new original character, Kyoya Kasugazaki, Joshua's skin and health specialist, an expert in the extremely rare Aquagenic Urticaria

It was Spring now. Tomatoes, grapes, apples, berries, apricots and plums grew and flourished on their trees, vines, steams and stalks in the Greenhouses of the Pentrose hotel and outside in the vegetable patches and the vineyards. The vegetable garden was a sea of watermelons, cantelope, lettuce, cabbage, and capsicums. Dido picked nine red capsicums, throwing them into a hessian sack full of green ones, plus chilli's that Chae-Seon had order from the produce farm on the Pentrose estate.

  
"A successful hotel restaurant and vineyard attracts people." Jeon said half absent-mindedly, following Dido as he searched out the presence of his wife as her Father was taken to Doensang City for hospitable treatment. If Dido had that hessian sack which he used for picking vegetables, it means he was making a delivery back to Chae-Seon's kitchen. "Everyone wants to try the brand-new sensation; especially cashed-up tourists and wealthy individuals from Seoul. Reputation grows; and this point now for my wife and son, it is international. Booking follows booking." Jeon sighed as Dido did go straight to Chae-Seon's kitchen, and he was kind enough to help her unload and sort the vegetables apart.

  
"You start to turn hungry people away." Jeon watched as Chae-Seon chattered about boiling whole tomatoes - stem and all - in hot oil, and serving them as a dish in the new vegetarian part of the menu she had curated on Wonwoo's idea after numerous on-line complaints from hopeful customers and idiotic animal-activists. "Which only makes them want it more." He grinned as she slapped Dido's face lightly when he made a commented about a lewdly shaped parsnip and asked which was bigger; that parsnip or Jeon's penis.

  
"Just like Satan's apple, you're totally and utterly irresistable. Like you've grown six inches and lost ten pounds over night. But a brilliant chef needs someone who can turn their great dishes into a sublime experience. This is Suri and A-Yeong's job; the hot, attractive women in tailored designer clothes. They float around the dining hall and the tea-rooms and the ball-room that is an extended part of the restaurant's dining area, and they purposely come and ask you how everything is when you're mouth is full. You can only grin around a full mouth, and have that twinkle in your eyes, gesturing with your hands. Suri and A-Yeong then laugh, and give a smile worthy of the front page of Vogue. Every great chef needs a great partner; I was Chae-Seon's, until I died that is." Jeon smiled wryly. "So now - thank God - she was A-Yeong to be the face of it all, while my son Wonwoo controls it all behind the scenes, Suri and A-Yeong the implementers of his decisions and rulings where the Pentrose is concerned. At least once a week, Chae-Seon is drawn up from her kitchen to be applauded by a hotel and restaurant full of people for her food. I love seeing that. I always make time to see that. All of it is their's, that Hotel; it all belongs to the family I loved."

  
Jeon sighed. "But how long can it last?"

\--------------------------------------

Joshua stared up at the ceiling of his Doctor's clinic rooms, lying on one of the oat-meal coloured fabric upholstered pouffe's. There was only one Doctor in South Korea who was a specialist in skin-orientated diseases, disorders and conditions, including the most profound; Aquagenic Urticaria, which Joshua suffered from. Allergy to water. If exposed to it, and wetter longer than as little as fifty seconds to two minutes, his skin began to blister and burn, weep and bleed, looking like a horrific sun-burn as his body was launched into agony. The condition affected his central nervous system, the exposure to water triggering an anaphylatic shock which could kill him. This Doctor was expensive, and he was thorough, and he was extremely good at his job. The first time Joshua had seen him after his spell in hospital, Joshua had expected a neat clean surgery to be fished into once a week. Except, he had found the Doctor's clinic was a converted barn, stables, with houses built like the Pentrose alongside and around it; it screamed multi-million pounds worth of currency.

  
"You know I tried to book a table for dinner?" The man said as he took a blood-sample from Joshua's wrist. He was testing Joshua's red-blood cell count due to a drug he had been put on; the drug behaved in a similar way to organ-transplant medication. Teach the body not to reject.

  
"Sorry?"

  
"At the Pentrose. They told me there was nothing available for months." The Doctor was a Japanese man; Kyoya Kasugazaki. He had swept black, thick grey hair, thin Japanese facial features, and brown eyes that were warm and brown. Joshua liked him enough.

  
"Please just pay attention to that thing in my arm." Joshua didn't like the sight of needles sticking out of his wrists.

  
"Absolutely, but...you're my most silent patient; my most anxious one, if I may say. I thought I'd tell you about my day."

  
Joshua smiled a little bit. "I think I should let you do your job without hinderance. Blood samples, patch-testing, hormone testing, the general check-up. And I'm right in knowing I've accidentally made a weird impression on you." Joshua held a cotton patch to his wrist as Kyoya took the needle out of his skin, a vial of blood filled up without trouble.

  
Kyoya chuckled lightly. "Many people would think that a young man with an allergy to water would have affected him psychologically. A barrier between you and the rest of the world...wouldn't you say?"

  
The leather of Kyoya's shoes creaked as he walked about the clinic's room, Joshua silent, staring at the ceiling. Those words had hit him; deep down, they were true.

  
"I'm so glad everything's going well for Chae-Seon." Kyoya said. "And A-Yeong. Must be...very gratifying."

  
"I hope it can last." Joshua swallowed. "I hope it isn't now being like what they had in Europe before Hitler invaded. What was that they had? The phoney war to practice for the trauma and the bloodshed? The man Chae-Seon was married to; his Mother had chest pains the night before.We're all going to die, but no one knows exactly when."

  
Kyoya knew it was Chae-Seon that paid a little bit of money along with the Government and medical insurance so Joshua could attend his practice. There were nine billion people in the world but only fifty people had Aquagenic Urticaria. Joshua Hong was the only one in South Korea. It was an intense fascination for him and a pleasure to study a human being that had a condition most people couldn't believe existed. It was like a fantasy come to life.

  
"Don't be worried. Stress is an inflammation for your nervous system." Kyoya advised soothingly to the young man in front of him who utterly captivated him. Kyoya sat on the swivel chair beside the pouffe. "Same time next week? Might have to come in earlier if your blood results come back negative. Any dizziness, excess tiredness, nausea; call a GP, and get him onto me."

  
"Religiously." Joshua rolled his eyes, but it wasn't derisive. "Of course; the ritual of doctors and experts and drugs." He sat up, and collected his coat.


	4. Family Dinners

"Wonwoo will be here with Joshy soon." Chae-Seon said, putting a large white ceramic bowl down onto the table in her and Wonwoo's house in the forest, where Wonwoo and Bo Hyuk had grown up. The whole family was there; Grandmother, A-Yeong, Li, Jihoon, Kwak Victoria and Elizabeth with the exception of their parents who were in Sweden on a holiday, plus Joshua when he turned up with Wonwoo. Since her husband had died she thought it was important to keep the fmaily bonds close by a once a week family dinner; close the hotel off, the restaurant off, the vineyards off. Have it just to themselves. Jeon had always had the whole family consistently at the Pentrose; Chae-Seon was going to keep it that way.

  
"Be down in a minute!" Joshua yelled out of the window in his bedroom to Wonwoo, who was waiting outside, leaning against the bonnet of the black Rolls Royce that Joshua said looked like it should be in a English funeral procession.

  
"This is lovely, Chae-Seon, as usual." 

  
"French pork in apple cream sauce." Li said, laughing. "This was on the 2005 Autumn/Winter menu. It's boneless pork chops that are pan-fired then simmered in a rich sauce of shallots, granny smith apples, hard cider, and heavy cream. It's -"

  
"Sounds like frog food." Victoria said over the rim of her wine glass, making everyone chuckle.

  
"It's not like that thing she made last week that looked like something someone ate and then coughed back up." Grandmother said.

  
" _Pasta alla Norma_." Jihoon said, having actually cooked that himself to Chae-Seon's sourced Sicilian recipe. "Pasta with aubergine. It's named after Bellini's opera "Norma" and originally from Catania like himself. The pasta is usually short and twisted, for example _busati_ , made of the locally grown durum wheat variety. The sauce is made from abergine, tomato, and is topped with dry ricotta." He looked at Grandmother. "Of course, it appeals to the more culture and sophisticated palate."

  
Elizabeth, Li, A-Yeong - along with Joshua and Wonwoo who had just arrived along with Dido - clapped. Chae-Seon smiled happily as Li's chest looked fit to burst with pride as he eagle-eyed Grandmother, who for all grace had to at least smile at the short young man.

  
"The best apprentice Mum could ever have." Wonwoo clapped Jihoon's shoulder. 

  
"How was it at the clinic today?" Chae-Seon asked, bringing a warm plate over for Wonwoo and Joshua. Li was making fun of her earlier at how she had virtually adopted Joshua.

  
"Fine. Doctor Kasugazaki didn't immediately see anything wrong. Everything seems fine. He took blood samples to test my reaction to the new medication." Joshua said. Wonwoo leaned over the table a bit as knives and forks and chopsticks with spoons began to clink and clatter as A-Yeong spoke to him, Joshua getting whisked off into conversation with Elizabeth, Li, Jihoon, while Dido talked politics with Victoria.

  
"We've got six new applicants to see tomorrow concerning management on the ground at the vineyards -"

  
"Which is fine as it is." Dido said loudly, standing up.

  
"You're forty-nine years old; you need to stop so much labour."

  
"What, and lose that body?" Victoria commented, fluorescent and sardonic, pulling up Dido's shirt to show off his still extremely trim and toned torso and hips.

  
"We've got a big wedding coming up where the vineyard is wanted to be the staple piece and we need to deliver." Wonwoo said, gesturing for Dido to sit down as the depth of humanity in A-Yeong's eyes changed.

  
"Well, give me a bastard who can do the fucking job any day." Both Joshua and Grandmother wondered to themselves separately if anyone else saw Victoria hold Dido's hand for a few moments beneath the table's surface.

  
"How many have you fired now?" A-Yeong commented.

  
"Two or three." Dido replied, eyes sparking. "If they weren't up to scratch."

  
"Seven." Wonwoo corrected his answer.

  
"Oh, that many?" Grandmother snorted a giggle to herself behind her hand as Dido's can of beer stopped halfway to his mouth as he feigned ignorance.

  
"Now, I think you could have a little more of this." The table's attention turned solely to Li as he stood up with a small plate of smoked salmon slices and put it on Joshua's plate of steamed vegetables. Everyone was even more amazed when Joshua began to eat the meat. Over the time they had all gotten to know Joshua, and he coming with Wonwoo to the family dinners, all of them had only seen him once eat meat. He was strictly salad and vegetables.

  
"Sorry, Grandmother, could you pass the salt?" He asked, after a few mouthfuls.

  
"My pleasure, dear." She handed it to him, making Li raised an eyebrow. He thought it was amazing the old dragon was alive with the amount of salt she put on things. 


	5. You Need Sex As A Matter Or Urgency

"Closing?" Chae-Seon echoed, crashing a tray of garlic-butter stuffed snails down onto the work bench. Suri remained un-fazed.

  
"As I understand it that was the arrangment?" She said. "Unless Mrs Li or Wonwoo failed to inform you?"

  
"That is impossible." Chae-Seon put the snails into the oven, and closed the door strongly. "My restaurant stays open wedding or no wedding. I don't care how much money the family have; we're rich as well. You'll have to tell this couple; whose organizing it? Her parents or his? Ring them up and say that is what is happening."

  
"With respect, it's not sure it's my place to play piggy in the middle." Suri said, following Chae-Seon as she collected a huge bowl full of ocean mussels.

  
"Fine. In the case, I'll have to kill the groom or bride's parents then on my own." Chae-Seon tipped the mussels into a pot of boiling water on the stove as her staff bustled about her at a hundred miles an hour, before crashing the lid on top of the pot.

\------------------------------------

"I risked incarceration in a German jail to bring Jeon's money here." Grandmother poured two glasses of white wine, one for herself, and one for Wonwoo. "And that money saved this place. Chae-Seon needs to remember that. Ringing up clients worth more money than God and thinking she can boss them around - it is ridiculous. Your Father should have married A-Yeong."

  
"I just don't see the point in conflict between Mum and the clients, or me and the clients."

  
"Hah!" Grandmother scoffed. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that." Wonwoo declined the glass of wine that Grandmother pushed across the table for him in Chae-Seon's house.

  
"I used to look at you at work and see a confident man." Grandmother said stoutly. "All piss and vinegar. But, well...now...you're dessicated."

  
Wonwoo scoffed, laughing at himself. "Thank you." He said quite sincerely to the old lady. He didn't understand how she had worked out that opinion; he didn't know if she was referring to the chaos a few months ago, or not.

  
"You need sex, Wonwoo, as a matter of urgency. Ideally a well-built young man with nothing much going on up here." Grandmother prodded her temple.

  
"Uh, sorry, but what about my partner, Joshua?" Wonwoo remarked. "Are you telling me I should have an affair?"

  
Grandmother wrinkled her nose. "He's very delicate." She said. "Very effeminate. And that water allergy of his...but apparently you can simply download them now." Her eyes widened as she spoke. Wonwoo couldn't help laughing.

  
"Yes, they tell me it's all online now." She nodded. "Settled-down life doesn't suit you, Wonwoo. You're still practically a child."

  
"I'm twenty-two."

  
"Hm! My point exactly. Unless you actually like not drinking white wine with pensioners?" Grandmother gestured to the glasses in front of her, before sliding Wonwoo's glass over to join her own.

\-----------------------------------

Wonwoo had moved in permantely to Joshua's house, the one had had given him by the river. It had just happened; no big discussions, no fuss. It had just happened; pure Jeon style. Jihoon was well and truly settled upstairs in the attic of the Pentrose as well.

  
“Wonwoo?"

  
Wonwoo shuts the lid of his laptop, responding to Joshua. Joshua jumped neatly over the back of the couch, putting the laptop of the floor and sitting in-between Wonwoo's legs. He was smiling pleasantly, and it made Wonwoo's stomach flip. All the romantics and the poets and the eldery who had been married since war-time said that you know it's love when you never get tired of that person's face; their beauty or lack of it always captivates you, and brings love and respect.

  
"Quick question; the head of the village council wants me to do illegal accounting for him so he can prescribe to the powerful urge of all rich people - a tax dodge." Joshua said. "Even more posh, he doesn't acknowledge it as a tax dodge. He says it is a legitimate tax avoidance measure -"

  
"Which is just a posh way of saying tax dodge." Wonwoo said on the end. 

  
"So...should I give him the long answer or the short answer?" Joshua asked. "Short answer being a punch in the face, or the long answer been he can go and fuck himself?"

  
Wonwoo didn't bother to choke down a laugh, even though he knew Joshua was serious. He was not in any way shocked that the village council leader had genuinely done this, but rather amused. Joshua by now had done the accounts for nearly every business in the village, but far from choking down laughs due to corrupt local politicans, he knew what he'd rather be choking on.

  
“Tell him he can go fuck himself." Wonwoo said, his voice getting deeper. "But as far as that goes...what do you want to do?"

  
Joshua blushed, his cheekbones blooming a dusty pink as he shifted his eyes now to the floorboards. The sight made Wonwoo crazy, but he kept his expression in check as he leant back against the couch, pulling Joshua's body closer to his chest. Joshua's hand pressed against Wonwoo's collarbones as he balanced when Wonwoo leaned back into the couch. They kept eye contact for a good thirty seconds before Joshua cleared his throat, looking to ground and up again. 

  
“What do I want to do?" Joshua echoed. Wonwoo felt a wave of excitement - hot and bright - rush through him. 

  
Joshua's body was so light and careful on Wonwoo's own; looking at Joshua now he knew he was a storm to the weather. Joshua blushed darkly, before the expression on his face changed.

  
"Lie down." He said to Wonwoo.

  
"Josh -" 

  
Joshua placed a finger under Wonwoo's chin and tilted his head up further towards his.

  
“Why are you suddenly so disinterested?” Wonwoo semi-conciously pressed his thighs together at Joshua's words. Wonwoo catches Joshua for a moment; the look in his eyes wasn’t humiliated anymore but...hungry. In that split second, Wonwoo felt his own cock harden by his thigh.


	6. The Same Side Of The Bed

"I always slept on the left side of our bed." Jeon said, sitting on the left side of he and Chae-Seon's bed as she read a book, tucked up in her pyjamas. "That way she wouldn't wake me when she came in from service at the Pentrose. Jeon smiled down at her as Chae-Seon's head suddenly tipped to the side, as thought she could see him, sitting there, watching her.

  
"Unlike husbands," Jeon mused quietly. "Old habits die hard." 

  
Chae-Seon threw her book to the end of the bed, staring up at the ceiling, sighing heavily before she switched off the light.  
Despite death, Jeon still slept beside her every night. She always stayed on the right side of the bed, as she had for over twenty years. As though she could still feel his body.

\---------------------------------

"Xu Mei-Lin is rich to a vulgar extent -"

  
"Like us." Chae-Seon interrupted, delivering in a mug of coffee for A-Yeong. Having been friends for so long, Chae-Seon knew to make coffee whenever A-Yeong started paper-work, otherwise she would get a headache or get tired eyes ten minutes into it. Wonwoo chuckled to himself quietly. They were in the private quarters for the managing staff and directors - Wonwoo, A-Yeong, and Suri - behind the Hotel's lobby. Sunlight poured into the room through the thick curtains, and Suri had put fresh flowers everywhere, picked by Dido. The room on the south and east-side walls contained floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, packed to the hilt with Korean, Chinese, English, German, French, Japanese works, antique and modern.

  
"And is paying us handsomely." A-Yeong rolled her eyes at the sharply proud smirk on Chae-Seon's face. Even though she was the widow of the deceased Jeon Senior...she was the widow of Jeon Senior, and Mother to Jeon Wonwoo. She continued speaking to Wonwoo. "So when she asks for extra guests and she wants your Mum to cook for the reception, we smile and oblige." A-Yeong made a note down in a lodge book.

  
"Mum's taken reservations, apparently." Wonwoo said lowly as the woman in question did not leave the room, but sat on the arm of one of the sofas a few feet away.

  
"Yes I bloody have. Personal friends -" Chae-Seon snapped at her son.

  
"Bullshit! Me and Li are the only people you get on with." A-Yeong leant back in her chair and crossed her arms beneath her chest.

  
"Close enough." Chae-Seon scowled. "Local dignitries -"

  
"Who want Joshua to help them accomodate tax evation into their calenders before the Summer Solstice." Wonwoo remarked.

  
"People, just people! Look, there's a principle at stake here -" Chae-Seon reorted.

  
"That you expect Wonwoo to take your side every time?" A-Yeong flicked up a eyebrow.

  
"That I should have been consulted because I'm the chef." Chae-Seon walked over to the table and leaned over A-Yeong dominantly. Both women paused their row as Chae-Seon's phone rang, and she answered it, leaving the room.

  
"Thank God for that." Wonwoo groaned as the space was free of his Mother. A-Yeong and he got squarely back down to business.

\--------------------------------------

Chae-Seon drove the Citroen into the below-storey car-parking of the Doengsang hospital, feeling beyond what could be termed as livid and utterly electrified by the news she had recieved from the A&E ward. The brakes squeaked and the hand-break ratcheded as she drew up in a car-park swiftly, breathing deeply. This was her worst nightmare. The day she had married Jeon, she thought she had got clean of the bastard.

  
"He's in here Mrs Jeon; it's something of a miracle for your Father." A male nurse said as he accompanied Chae-Seon through the hospital hallways.

  
"How did you find me?" Chae-Seon asked.

  
"You were his emergency contact, that's all we had to go on." The nurse answered.

  
Chae-Seon pulled across the blue curtain surrounding her Father's bed. The sight that greeted her was him lying in a hospital gown beneath blankets on a thin, single bed, half-asleep, with fashionable stubble grazing his cheeks, chin, upper lip and jaw, with a neck-brace worn. He slowly raised his head a few centimeters to see who stood before him. Chae-Seon felt her face fall as her stomach and heart did. It wasn't the sight of him in a neck-brace that made her feel that way. It was the fact that he happened to not be dead. How does this sub-human bastard get to be alive and my lovely husband has to go? ran through Chae-Seon's head.

  
"Chae-Seon." Sung-Il whispered, smiling gently. "My little girl."

"They told me you were on life support." Chae-Seon managed, deciding to go for the Li family tactic; when in serious heartbreak, fear, or otherwise emotional up-heaval - be either animalistically manic or coldly vicious. The latter was still slightly human. She decided on the second one.

  
"Sorry to disappoint you." Sung-Il remarked, giving a tenderly heatbroken expression that didn't even go remotely near Chae-Seon; she would let it. She walked over to his bed-side, leaning with her arm against the bed-head, looking at her Father closely. Sung-Il's hair and beard and gone completely grey, been now in his early seventies. She studied the lines on his forehead, eyes and jaw; the way age had made his cheeks sink in a little. He wasn't a over-weight man by any means; his body had just grown old. 

  
"Does it hurt? The head?" She asked softly.

  
"Like someone dropped a paint tin on it." Sung-Il replied.

  
Chae-Seon smiled cruelly. "Good." She responded, before walking away.

  
"So what happens now?" Sung-Il called after her.

  
"Absolutely nothing." She sung, as she swept out of the ward.

  
The full weight of her Father's re-appearnce in her life hit her as she climbed back into the Citroen. How the hell was she going to hide this? A-Yeong, Dido, and Li were the only people alive today who had seen Sung-Il before. Wonwoo and Bo Hyuk had never met their Grandfather, and for good reason.

  
Now, it was going to have to be swept underneath the carpet, and fucking well kept there. She refused to re-live that day; that funeral. And no one was going to find out about it.


	7. Someone New

"There's six managers waiting outside to be interviewed for the vineyard job and Mum just left even though she's the big chef and everything and Dido has gone into the forest?" Wonwoo echoed to Suri in the Lobby, his Grandmother on his arm. 

  
"I'm afraid so." Suri confirmed.

  
"Christ!" Wonwoo said. "Did she say when she'd be back."

  
"Sorry." Suri apologised. "Would you like me to send them away?"

  
"This place is not his Mother's own personal fiefdom. And neither is it that savage's - Dido." Grandmother said. She looked elegant in a crew-neck, sleeves, straight cut dress where at the bottom of her rib cage a arrow shape was sewn there, and from the lines of the tip of the arrow white fabric fell down in a curtain, sewin together with an internal seam with the black. She had cut her hair into a Louise-Brooke curtain style, rather than her old-lady flounces she once had. "We are perfectly capable. Suri, dear, where are the applicants paperwork? Our copies of their resumes?"

  
"We?" Wonwoo echoed.

  
"Yes." Grandmother repeated. "I am both scrupolously fair and a excellent judge of character. Come on." She tugged on her grandson's arm. The interview area was set up in the Dining-hall, and Wonwoo nearly grinned as his Grandmother crossed the floor gracefully through the French doors to the applicants waiting outside in the courtyard, five of them out of six on their phones.

  
"You! Young man - you're first." She announced, pointing a finger at one of them. "This way - and I suggest you tuck your shirt in as all men on this Estate do."

  
Wonwoo really did choke down a laugh as a short-haired stranger in sneakers, jeans, a flannel shirt and a cotton undershirt quickly did up his buttons and tucked everything in as he followed Grandmother inside.

\---------------------------------------

Grandmother glared distastefully at a young man who fiddled with the edge of the table-cloth in the dining hall as Wonwoo quickly checked through his records of prior experience. Wonwoo's foot tapped soundlessly against her's, a gesture to say that this applicant was no good. That was the fifth one, and all previous four had been equally as disappointing. Too young, too naive, too easily suited to burst into tears the first moment Dido would call them a "cunt". 

  
"Yes, thank you." Grandmother shooed the applicant away. "Eugh!" She groaned loudly, the applicant still within ear-shot. "Totally unsuitable. Unless excessive perspiration is a desirable quality."

  
"Perhaps it's a condition." Wonwoo said.

  
"In his case..." His Grandmother's voice went sing-song. "It's terminal!" With a swift stroke, she crossed the applicants name off of the list with a pink high-lighter.

  
Wonwoo walked outside to call up the sixth and final applicant. He was a young man with handsome Eurasian features, in grey trousers and a dark blue shirt.

  
"Andy Hodgins?" Wonwoo read off of the list.

  
"Hi." The man smiled and greeted him, following him into the Dining hall.

  
Ten minutes later, Wonwoo was intently reviewing his resume. "So you worked in London? At "Timeless" as a chef, but then you went to the Barossa Valley in Australia and worked for wine merchants..."The Big Shed" for six years?" He said aloud. It seemed Andy was older than Wonwoo had initially thought; at least thirty-two or thirty-five years old.  
"Yeah, for about seven months. It was an amazing experience." Andy replied; his accent was a blend of British and Australian. It was as handsome as his face.  
"So why did you leave?" Grandmother inquired.

  
Andy hesitated. "I'd rather not talk about it." He admitted.

  
"If there was an issue with a previous employer, we need to know about it. It's relevent for us to know." Wonwoo said to him.

  
"MI6 and kangaroo's spring to mind." Grandmother commented. 

  
"It's pretty dark. My boss's daughter got molested at a party at the vineyard estate in Australia. We had a whole court case and the guy who did it is in jail for the next eight years; I participated in the trial as a witness for my boss's family. Talk about...you see, she came to me first, found me first. Bruised and bashed up. I called the coppers and her Dad..." Andy looked awkwardly at the table. "Sorry, guys."

  
Grandmother simply started at Andy, mildly horrified, while Wonwoo skipped back to the interview as a physically-felt cloud set around them. Wonwoo wished he hadn't asked.  
"Well, your CV is excellent." Wonwoo informed Andy, who slowly brightened. "With this you could get a job as a chef or as a manager in half the restaurants and farms in the country. Why would you like to work here?"

  
"Your Mum - Jeon Chae-Seon - was always a really cool person. Female chef - top of her game. Inspiration. And this place -" Andy gestured around them. "Has been famous since the 80's. My own parents came here five years ago for a wedding anniversary. Best food they ever had." He grinned. "And, the Pentrose itself...when I saw it had been re-launched, it started to make me think. I want to come and see the legacy myself, left by..." Andy didn't mention Jeon's death outright. "Sorry, I'm not giving a great answer."

  
"I understand." Wonwoo replied. "Perhaps you could come with us down to the vineyard?"

  
Andy grinned. "Yeah, I'd love to." He said.

\-----------------------------------

"Making wine and growing the crop for it is an art, and wine-makers can be real artists." Jeon said, following his Mother, son and this new guy as Wonwoo paid attention to his words as he talked about weather conditions, soil, climate change, it's impact on harvest fruits, and the variants of the Spring/Summer editions of wine they were to be putting on the market for the up-coming seasons. Jeon could tell Wonwoo was impressed, and listened to every detail carefully; Jeon inherited his mother's ability of not been fucked with.

  
"But wine-makers - like chefs, parents, entrepreneurs, and heirs - can also be liars, cheats, and utter bastards." Jeon added. "But you knew that already, right?"

  
Suddenly, the magic words dropped from Wonwoo's mouth.

  
"When can you start?" He asked Andy.

\---------------------------------------

Joshua walked down through the Sunday village market, headphones in, and his umbrella rolled up neatly in his hand, swinging back and forth as he walked across the mix of gravel, dirt, stone-paved, and bichemond roads.

  
"Joshua!"

  
Joshua turned around, taking on headphone out in the process. Despite absolutely everything that had happened in the recent past and the not so recent past, when he saw his ex Kim Mingyu, he knew that anyone walking past would notice that his eyes had lit up and glowed. He smiled, waving a hand as Mingyu jogged over, helmet in one hand, leather jacket on.

  
"Hello." He chuckled, leaning happily into Mingyu's side as Mingyu wrapped an arm around him, and kissed his forehead. 

  
He loved Mingyu's spontaneous visits. The two of them had patched it up; all of them had patched it up. Joshua, Mingyu, Jeonghan, and Wonwoo. They were all making it work, when it had not before.


	8. Storm To Weather

"She hardly ever talked about her Father." Jeon watched as Chae-Seon slammed closed the driver's door moodily outside the front of Joshua's house. "Something tells me that isn't about to change."

  
When she walked around the side of teh house which gave the kitchen, dining room and sitting room a view of the river, she saw the second motorcyclist apparently adopted into the whole family at the kitchen table of her son's partner; Kim something his name was. Still as handsome as ever, and Chae-Seon thought it was good to have friendly ex's rather than horrible ones. But she didn't like the idea of Joshua entertaining ex's while Wonwoo had no idea at work at the Pentrose.

  
There was a bottle of wine open on the table with two mugs; Joshua sat on the table with his back to the glass doors, Mingyu in a chair at the end of the table. Joshua looked around and beamed happily at Chae-Seon as she slid open the glass doors.

  
"Look what I found!" Joshua said happily, looking over his shoulder.

  
"Hi." Mingyu smiled, dropping her a wink. Chae-Seon knew he meant no harm, but it didn't help any of them with her still in a bad mood.

  
So Chae-Seon walked out and left them there, the young men staring after her.

\------------------------------

"Sorry about Mum." Wonwoo said later to Joshua, the two of them spending time together in the Greenhouses. "How's Mingyu doing?"

  
"No more bad penny action." Joshua teased, resting his head against Wonwoo's shoulder as they sat on one of the old wooden tables among the strawberry plants growing in pots, wellington-boots, old kettles and chipped ceramic stew bowls. "No sinister reason he's been dumped on the doorstep."

  
"Like there been no duress." Wonwoo grinned. "Nice when there's genuinity. Did he ever settle down with that girl he got pregnant?"

  
"I think she lost it at fourteen weeks or something." Joshua said. "Major ordeal to lose a baby after twelve weeks. Long stay in Hospital. Pretty traumatic for those all around. Mingyu's never going to settle down. I think he likes it like that. He blames it on "gypsy blood"."

  
"Bullshit." Wonwoo said. "He was born and raised in Seoul. It's fine for any girl or guy to want a little romance in their dotage, but come on."

  
"We're getting old." Joshua replied thoughtfully.

  
"Speak for yourself." Wonwoo teased.

  
"I think Mingyu just woke up the other morning - alone, he told me - he had had enough. It's time to be a grown-up."

  
"Give up the bike?" Wonwoo questioned.

  
"Never." Joshua shook his head. 

  
"He could always sweet talk you." Wonwoo commented; he wasn't having a go. Just stating a fact. 

  
"There you have it." Joshua leaned back, his mouth half-curved in a lazy smile. "Satisfaction guarranteed or your money back."

  
Wonwoo gave him a quick kiss. "I'll think about it."

\----------------------------------------

Chae-Seon spinkled seasoning over steamed potatoes as they were laid handsomely and ready in their service bowls, beds of brown rice beneath them with broth in smaller bowls on the side. This dish wasn't on the menu; it was for Suri upstairs, who would be working late tonight due to a client and his 50th birthday, and she needed feeding. Steamed potatoes with spice, brown rice, and a small bowl of beef broth were Suri's favourite dishes to eat. 

  
"You disappeared earlier." A-Yeong's voice suddenly said in her ear.

  
"Sorry, I had to see someone." Chae-Seon finished Suri's dinner, and fetched on of the waitress's to take it upstairs. She rested a hand on her hip, turning around to face her best friend. "Did Dido turn up for the interviews?"

  
"No." A-Yeong shook her head.

  
"So, the interviews need to be arranged -" Chae-Seon began, but a happy expression bloomed on A-Yeong's face.

  
"Wonwoo did it. He really made his first proper executive staff-hiring decision." She smiled. Chae-Seon chuckled.

  
"Dido will kill him." She remarked, smacking A-Yeong's thigh to move her out of the way for one of the staff trying to get through to the pantry.

  
"His staff." Chae-Seon's mouth went into an upside-down shape as she humorously grimaced at A-Yeong's response.

  
"Wonwoo's name on the liscence; our - his - vineyard. Dido just walked out on it. His name is Andy - Eurasian boy - and he starts tomorrow." A-Yeong explained.

  
"Dido will bleed him to death into a wine barrell." A-Yeong laughed at Chae-Seon's words, the other woman raising her hands and mimicking the gestures of practicing black magic. 

\---------------------------------------

"What a hottie," Elizabeth came over and nudged her sister, pointing at Jihoon sitting on his bike, on his phone, just off high street. Victoria rolled her eyes, but her younger twin sister only squeezed her arm tighter, and rested her head breifly against Victoria's shoulder as they walked. A moment later - Jihoon still on his phone - a text alert came through from Elizabeth's hand-bag.

  
"She's over here, you parasite, if you want to talk to her!" Victoria suddenly hollered, waving her free arm in the air. She stood still on the pavement, crossing her arms and glaring at Jihoon as Elizabeth ran excitedly across the street to him, and his chest vanished into her breasts as she hugged him tightly.

  
Jeon chuckled. "You know, Victoria, I think it was Napoleon who said, "You must not fight too often with one enemy...or you will teach him all your art of war"." He glanced at his eldest niece, who looked immensely disapproving. "Victoria...baby, you've got no idea what you've started."

  
Victoria walked over and sat in the busy, tourist-packed bar of one of the local village hotels and restaurants - modern, Scandinavian, and bright - drinking a lemon gin and tonic while Jihoon and Elizabeth talked happily amongst themselves on the couches in the lobby, having a coffee together. Victoria couldn't drive home in the Audi; her ride was Elizabeth's ride as well.

  
No way in hell would she be responsible for her sister getting killed and spread across the road.

  
She gazed around the room, watching insightfully, hoping someone would come and talk to her, chat her up, pay attention to her. Pay the same amount of attention to her as everyone did to Elizabeth; they looked exactly the same, weighed exactly the same, did their make-up nearly the same. Where Elizabeth's make-up was bright, cute, light and fun, Victoria had always gone for the more sultry look; dark eye makeup, red lipstick. Italian sensuality.

  
Victoria spotted a man with buzz-cut hair in a tailored button-up shirt and black trousers, drinking a beer, and for a moment she thought he looked at her. Victoria looked away over to the windows of the hotel; it had begun to rain, meaning more people came inside the hotel and it's little restaurant and cafe. She drained the rest of her gin and tonic, feeling bitterly worthless, lonely, and jealous of Elizabeth, even though Jihoon was just another fuck-stick boy who happened to make a quid as a chef.

  
She looked back over to where the man had been sitting, but he had gone. Victoria deflated; he looked too old for her anyway. Mid-forties.

  
"Excuse me, could I have the bill please?" She gestured down to her empty glass at the bar. 

  
She looked up as a tall, warm body leaned against the bar beside her. "Hi." The man she had spotted earlier said to her. "Were you waiting for someone?"

  
"I...don't think he's coming." Victoria lied, before blushing; what if he had seen a girl the image of her in a pink and white flower patterened sundress with a boy in a motorcycle jacket in the coffee lounge?

  
"Well, then, he must be dead." The man said. "That must be the only rational explanation."

  
She smiled. "You might be right." She responded. "I should go."

  
"Shame." The man said.

  
"...Or I could buy you a drink?" Victoria raised an eyebrow.

  
Barely a minute later, the man was following her up the stairs of the hotel; Victoria felt his hand ran up her calf as the stairs were climbed, and it sent electricity through her. She fell, deeply lost and soulful in the back of her mind as she leant against the railing and he kissed her, a hand pressed to the small of her back and his hand over hers on the railing.

  
Elizabeth and Jihoon downstairs were forgotten.


	9. Mystery Man

"So, what arrangment does this make me?" Mingyu asked as Joshua unlocked the front door to the bathing hut on the oppsite side of the river from his house on the Pentrose estate. "Hm? The gnome at the bottom of the garden?"

  
"It makes you part of my life. On a temporary basis." Joshua replied, turning on the lamps. "Take it or leave it, you're not sleeping in the next room to me and Wonwoo."

  
"I'll take it." Mingyu smiled a little. Joshua nodded, giving him the key.

\---------------------------------------

Victoria grinned to herself at the thought of Elizabeth running mental downstairs, at the Pentrose, and around the rest of the village looking for her as, finally, several hours later, she was doing the zip on her dark blue dress back up, and slipping on her leather boots. The man - called Han-Zhou - laid back in the bed watching her through half-lids.

  
"Thank you." Victoria knelt back on the bed to kiss him and to grab her purse of the bedside table, but he ducked out of the way and gave her purse back to her.  
"I know this is the part where I'm supposed to ask if I can see you again..." He began.

  
"You won't. I'm afraid I just used you for sex." Victoria grinned. Han-Zhou kissed her.

  
"Good answer." He said as Victoria left.

  
Victoria fell into the centre of her bed that night, and immediately nearly pissed herself laughing at what she had done.

  
She didn't think she did that bad for a virgin.

\--------------------------------------

Chae-Seon had found that every customer was going nuts over the recent mussel dish; they all loved, and craved it.

  
"When you run a business everyday has it's own rhythm." Jeon kissed her head but she didn't notice it. "And every chef loves it." he watched as Chae-Seon poured olive-oil over romona tomatoes that were to be roasted in the oven and then picked up two dead pheasants by their ankles and smashed them down onto the metal work surface in the Pentrose's kitchen. "They'd cook for free." He grinned as she chopped the heads off the dead birds, and hung them over a bucket to drain. "It's the rest of the crap like this you have to pay us for."

  
"Ah. Here. Try." Chae-Seon beckoned Wonwoo over as he came down into the kitchen. She gestured for him to try a Italian recipe sauce. 

  
"It's fine." He said after a few moments.

  
"Exactly." Chae-Seon glared down at the pot. "It's lacking something but the internet won't give me any alterations to the Noanna's recipe."

  
"Let me have a go - hey, Wonwoo." Jihoon clapped Wonwoo's back as he came over into the kitchen from the pantry as the Lunch service was in full swing. He tasted the sauce as well.

  
"Have we got any anchovies?" He asked Chae-Seon.

  
"That sounds revolting." Wonwoo said to Jihoon as his Mother disappeared into the pantry. "Ok. Show me."

  
Jihoon smirked to himself as Chae-Seon came back with an fresh can. Jihoon threw one into a stone bowl, and ground it into a paste with a touch of olive oil with a mort and pester. Jihoon added it to the bowl of sauce, and turned up the heat, letting it simmer without a lid. A few minutes later, Wonwoo and Chae-Seon both tasted it.

  
"I still think it's gross." Wonwoo said, making his Mother nearly piss herself along with the rest of the kitchen stuff while Jihoon glowed proudly.

  
It continued to pour rain outside, thunder rumbling in the air. Joshua stood outside the Pentrose's kitchen, his umbrella over his head, looking up at the deeply black and grey sky. He looked over as Jihoon came down the steps, a lit cigarette in his mouth. He offered it to Joshua.

  
"Don't tell Mum or Auntie." Jihoon warned. Joshua grinned.

  
"Thanks."

  
"I know you've got your umbrella up but you shouldn't be out here." Jihoon commented as Joshua puffed on the cigarette.

  
"It's not too late to run across the field. As long as you don't tell, Wonu." Joshua replied. Jihoon smiling, scuffing the toe of his shoe into the ground. "You could be anywhere in the world right now, Jihoon. Traveling, University, anything you like. Yet you're here, enslaved by the unoffical mother-in-law in there."

  
"Why not be here?" Jihoon responded.  
"Cool."

  
"Always."

\--------------------------------------

Dido half-glared at the back of the new employee's head; Andy. Dido had set him a test over a barrell of wine. Prove it to me or fuck off. The test had been selecting the nutrient-fertiziler to put on the beginnings of a new crop extending out towards the boundary of the Estate, and then the hard work: the landscaping, planting, over-seeing the project, and delivering.

  
Andy had exceeded expectations. 

  
"Do you know I was planning of firing you?" Dido walked down into the Vineyard's field, at the very bottom end where Andy was digging with a shovel. He had an umbrella in his hand and a can of coke; it was fucking wet and Andy's clothes were sticking to his skin. That was another thing; he hadn't made a comment or a complaint about having to work in the rain. He persistently went and did it and seemed to be enjoying himself.

  
"Yeah, what stopped you?" Andy asked, taking the umbrella and holding it up over he and Dido's heads. Raindrops ran down Dido's shoulders and chest, and glistened in his thick beard. Dido was just wearing his tradesman's boots, a pair of cargo shorts, and a tank-shirt. The weather didn't seem to bother him.

  
"Your happiness to work in the pouring fucking rain without primeval equipment; you know it's not the right way of doing it - as far as modern stuff goes. Yet, out of respect for me and willingness to do the job you've had the intelligent thought of going, "All's good in the world". You know where to dig and how much to dig, and when I tried to tell you the wrong way of doing it, you listened, but you did it the other way - the right way. You saw I was trying to fuck you up." Dido explained.

  
"Do you want me to come back tomorrow?" Andy checked.

  
"Fucking oath." Dido nodded. Andy grinned.


End file.
